Shadows of a Memory (also in books)
by DoubleA7
Summary: He tries to remember. He wants to. But anything that involves her is like a shadow. He knows it's there but can never touch it.


He wakes up. His eyes blink slowly,adjusting to the sudden light that is even more blinding with the white walls that surround him. Where is he?

He tries to get up but the tubes connected to him suppress him. It dawns on him then, that he is in a hospital. But why? He looks around him, trying to remember but the drugs that are being pumped into him fog his memory. A machine to his left is beeping. His head hurts and so does his right side.

Then he remembers why he is in a hospital. He had been in a car crash with someone... who was it? A woman, he knew that much, but couldn't conjure her face up other than a smile that that prominently showed her dimples. Scratching his head with his left hand, he stops for a moment, paralyzed. On his ring finger is a gold band. He doesn't recognize it nor remember how he attained it. The ring is obviously expensive despite its simplicity. Is he married? Why-

His thoughts are interrupted when Joly comes into the room, still in his blue scrubs. The hypochondriac is furiously scrubbing a large amount of hand sanitizer into his skin and didn't notice that the patient was awake. He stops when he does. "Enjolras you're awake!" Joly shouts then promptly runs out of the room.

Enjolras can hear the young intern's shouting through the thin walls and can't help but smile. Joly soon returns with a woman who he assumes is a doctor. She introduces herself as Dr. Simplice and orders Joly to check the machines.

"How are you feeling, Monsieur Enjolras?" she asks as she checks some papers on her clipboard. He is prepared for the question and responds swiftly. "My head hurts and so does my chest, right here," he points to the spot as the ring glints in the light. He can't stop staring at it. The guys must be playing some joke on him, he concludes.

Dr. Simplice notices where his gaze rests and smiles, though it is somber. "You must be wondering about your wife."

Joly stops what he was doing and both he an the doctor wait for Enjolras' reaction. He plays along. "Yes, how is she?"

Dr. Simplice takes a seat and she makes eye contact with him. "We placed your wife is in a temporary coma since her injuries were more severe. I'm sorry, it pains me to say this, but...she lost the baby."

She and Joly avert their eyes from his face.

God, now they were putting a baby in this?! Did the guys really think that just because he was in a car crash that they could fool him into believing he had a wife and that she had been pregnant with his child? He doesn't even date! And finally Enjolras can't help it, he laughs. It hurts his head and body but he can't help it. "C'mon out guys! I know you're there!" He expects to see the guys peeping out of their hiding spots or marching in through the door with cameras and jokes. But no one does.

Dr. Simplice and Joly both stare incredulously at him. After his laughter dies down Joly glares angrily at him. "What is wrong with you?"

Enjolras stops laughing. "Me? You're the ones trying to prank me!"

Dr. Simplice frowns then looks over her papers again, she gestures to Joly to leave the room. "I need to check on something, I'll be back soon," she says then promptly shuts the door behind her. It barely takes a minute before she and Joly reenter the room.

"I hear you're into Major League Baseball." Enjolras nods. Where is she going with this? He always watches the games when he doesn't have work and had once wanted to be a professional player.

"Who won the championship last year?" Dr. Simplice asks, her pen posed above the clipboard. Enjolras easily answers the question. "The Philadelphia Phillies."

Dr. Simplice and Joly exchange worried glances to each other. "The San Francisco Giants won last year," Joly says slowly. Enjolras shakes his head. "No, I watched the game and the Phillies won." Everyone knows that he takes baseball seriously.

Dr. Simplice writes something down. "The Phillies won, but not last year." She says and before Enjolras could reply she continues. "That's beause last year was 2012, not 2008."

* * *

He's told he has amnesia. He doesn't believe it and demands they prove it. They show him all the calendars in the hospital, including the ones in the gift shop. He even makes them buy something just to see the date on the receipt.

All his friends visit him after hearing the news from Joly. They all look older and some are even married. Seeing them brings back a few of the memories he has lost, though they aren't specific. He remembers laughing with Combeferre about something Courfeyrac had said but couldn't remember what he had said. Or Gavroche winning a prize but what the prize was for he can't recall.

It hits him then that he has a wife and they have, no, had, a baby. Suddenly he's demanding that he see her but is told she is in surgery. His friends run back to their houses and return with albums and home videos as a back up.

He flips through the pages furiously. Album after album. Only Grantaire and Jehan can stay and help him with the memories since the rest of their friends have work to do, but in Marius' and Cosette's case they must attend to their two children.

Grantaire, who is sober for one of the few times in his life, points out and describes pictures. He is shown pictures of her. He recognizes her as Eponine, who was a friend of Marius', the one he would see pining after the freckle faced man. He remembers arguing against her a lot, but also occasionally smiling with her. The pictures depict a cleaner, happier person than he remembers.

"There you two are on your wedding day," says Jehan. He was dressed in a black suit with a red handkerchief tucked neatly into his left breast pocket. He had his arm wrapped around her waist. She was in a white dress that wasn't too flashy and showed off her curves nicely. Her head was thrown back in laughter while he was just smiling at the camera.

Why can't he remember them? He remembers her just not them together as a couple.

Dr. Simplice enters the room and tells him that he can see Eponine for a short time if he wants to.

* * *

She looks thinner than the pictures showed her, her hair is messy, and her cheecks seem to have sunk in slightly. She looks how he remembers her. Skinny and sad.

She notices him and tries to smile, but he can tell it's forced. She must already know about his amnesia.

"I'm sorry," he says after he takes a seat next to her bed. Bandages wrap around her arms and she has several of them on her face.

"You look different," she says. For a moment he wonders if she also has amnesia. A horrible thought, but he kind of wants her to have amnesias o they both weren't alone. One alone, trying to grasp onto something but they don't know what it is. The other alone with memories that they can't share with the other. Instead she touches the spot above his right eyebrow where a piece of glass from the car window had left a thin, jagged scar. He winces slightly at the contact, not because it hurts, but because _she's_ touching him.

"Sorry," she says, pulling her hand away. They both avert their eyes away from each other. Normally he's fine with silence but now it fills him with dread and he wants to scream.

"How long were we together?" He needs to know why they were a couple. Interactions with her, that he could recall, weren't exactly pleasant nor unpleasant. They just were there. Which made it much worse because nothing stood out. To him, she was just the love sick girl who would gaze at Marius.

"Two days ago was our second anniversary as a married couple." She says this easily with a small, sad smile on her face.

"How did we start dating?"

"Truthfully, I don't remember. We just kind of were." Were. The word feels like a death sentence. He continues asking her questions about what he has missed because unlike with their friends, who he practically grew up with, she is like a stranger. He asks, she answers, but the subjects never go back to anything about them or the baby, it's just about their friends.

He learns Gavroche, her little brother, is now officially adopted by Courfeyrac's family and Jehan and Grantaire are dating. Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta still have their complicated relationship. Bahorel and Feuilly have started a business that is a weird mixture of fans, items from Poland, and defense lessons. Turns out Combeferre is now dating a single mom of one of his former students. Marius and Cosette are still Marius and Cosette.

Eventually he leaves because her doctor has to talk to her and it really is none of his business, though it should be.

* * *

The doctors tell him he can go home. They say it will take time and that his memories might come back if he is surrounded by familiar surroundings. Only he can't go home by himself because he doesn't know where he lives anymore. So he calls Marius and Cosette who pick him up from the hospital.

"How's Eponine?" asks Marius when he gets into the backseat. They have a van that can hold a total of eight people and he wonders how many children they plan on having.

"Umm. Dr. Simplice told me she has to stay because she has to be in a few more surgeries." He forgot why and what the surgeries are for.

Cosette turns around from shotgun to face him. Her blonde hair has been pulled back into a bun. "How are you feeling, Enjolras?" Her big eyes are filled with worry.

"Better. Umm.. I didn' feel like asking Eponine this, but, how far along was she?" He had wanted to bring the subject up but knew that it was too early to ask Eponine.

Cosette turns her attention to the side window while Marius shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "Six months. You two were making an album for it. I think she said she stored it in the cabinet next to the computer."

They help him into the house since they have spare keys. Marius gives him a tour of Enjolras' own house, which is two stories but fairly simple. They stop in front of the room that was labeled Patria.

"You irritated Eponine for over twenty two days that you call the baby Patria. She relented, but only if it turned out to be a girl, and lucky for you, she was." Cosette explains. Lucky. How ironic that in the end he has worse bad luck than Bossuet. A silent agreement of not entering the nursery went unspoken as Marius continued the tour.

Once they are gone, Enjolras goes to where the computer is and checks all the cabinets near it. He finally finds the album, which is also labeled Patria in red and black letters. Only the second page has pictures in it. One was of him and Eponine where he was excitedly pointing at her stomach which had a slight bulge to it while another showed him painting a room, which he guessed was the nursery, a sky blue. He smiles at the pictures but only because he sees that he was happy with Eponine. He wants to be happy again. But how can he when he doesn't even know what it felt like? There is a saying that goes something like, you can't miss what you never had, and he isn't sure how it applies to him. He had happiness, does that mean that since he can't remember it, he can't miss it?

He sighs and puts the album back. There are three messages, all from a man named Bamatabois, who is apprently his boss. The first one he asks why Enjolras wasn't at work, the next was saying he just heard about the accident from watching the news, and third that he was giving Enjolras three weeks off to, as he put it, recuperate. Enjolras calls Combeferre to double check that the man is his boss and after getting the okay from Combeferre, he drags himself to the master bedroom and flops down on the king sized bed.

But he can't fall asleep. Enjolras tries and uses all the tricks he knows, but he can't. Eponine. He wonders how she is doing. Did she cry when she realized that she lost the baby? Is she thinking about him too, wondering if he will ever recover?

Why is it he can remember such little things as a joke or Courfeyrac declaring he was in love (yet again), but not his own wedding? He knows it's there but can't grasp it. Anything involving _her_ in the past five years is gone. Erased. He wants to get them back, wants to remember every little the fight they might've gotten in to but can't. It was like trying to catch his own shadow. And the thing about shadows is that you know they're there but can never touch them.

The last thing he thinks is that four years of his life were just ripped away from him.

* * *

The next day he visits Eponine in the hospital, hoping he can regain something. A nurse is helping her walk outside and he joins them. The nurse guides them to a marble bench then leaves them in privacy.

"I'm glad to see you again, Enjolras," she says. Her hospital gown hangs limply off her and her hair is pulled back in a messy bun.

He doesn't greet her because the question he wants to ask is eating him up. "What happened?"

She looks at him confused. "The crash," he explains. Her face falls for moment and he catches a glimpse of a soul that is just as broken and confused as he is, but then it's gone and she has a emotionless mask on. He wants to tear it off because h wants to let her know that marble can crumble too. And right now, he is just the dust left over from it.

"Oh. Well, we were just getting back from dinner because we were celebrating the anniversary." He can't help but notice she doesn't say our. For some reason it hurts that she seems to have already accepted his amnesia, that they won't ever be the same. It's crazy because less than twenty-four hours ago he was wondering why they were even together. Why he had chosen to love someone he had always had poor opinions of.

"You always were very careful when driving and with me being pregnant, you were even more careful. We were talking about a new American TV show you liked, Graceland, and whether we would stay up that late to watch the third episode." He notices how her hand keeps on unconsciously drifting towards her stomach. "And the light was green, we were at an intersection, and when we right in the middle of turning, a large truck came out despite the other traffic. You saw it but it was coming too fast and hit our left side straight on. You yelled for me to get down and..." The whole time she was talking she kept a blank face but tears were silently rolling down her face. And finally she breaks down, the words coming out all jumbled, but he doesn't care. Why the Hell did he ask? It was causing her pain. And then he realizes that they were in the accident because of him. He was driving. He should've seen the truck. And suddenly he too is a blubbering mess, both of them crying and somehow end up hugging each other.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he yells the words out over and over and to his surprise so is she. It was all his fault and yet she was apologizing?! But then, there were many things to be sorry for and he doesn't know what it i she is sorry for.

Their sobs dwindle down and both straighten up. She's holding his hand and he is mere centimeters away from her face. And for the first time he sees why he was in love with her. Not because they both had a breakdown with each other but that she was there. Because both of them were there for each other.

The nurse comes back and he allows her to go. This time it is harder to say goodbye.

* * *

Enjolras was on the computer, searching through all the pictures on it. He's fuming inside because he recently got a call from the driver of the other vehicle and slammed the phone down so hard when they introduced themselves, he broke it.

Clicking angrily through pictures, he stops at one of them. It's not a recent picture. Maybe three years old. Grantaire and Jehan pushing one of Marius' and Cosette's children on a swing a the park. The freckly father and lark of a mother are helping the other one who was barely over a year old, down a slide nearby. The picture is unfocused but not so much that you can't tell who the individuals are. Enjolras and Eponine are not in this photo but he remembers it clearly.

_"I'm a going to fall!" squealed Marius' and Cosette's oldest daughter as she goes higher with each push from Grantaire. "Uncle Jay, catch me!" Jehan, who had been lazily pushing himself in a swing, jumps up and rushes forward to the little girl. His arms are held out as he thought she was atually going to try and jump out of the swing onto the hard concrete. When she doesn't and just laughs along with Grantaire, he scolds both of them with his puppy dog eyes and pouting mouth. He then stays in front of her despite the child's and Grantaire's protests that she wasn't actually going to jump off the swing._

_Enjolras watches as Eponine takes out her camera, ready to take the picture. He slips right behind her without her noticing, a feat to accomplish, and hugs her just as she snaps the photo. Eponine laughs, then playfully hits him in the arm. "God, now you ruined the picture!" she says with a smile and shows him it. He shrugs. "It's not too bad. I like it."_

_She kisses him lightly on the mouth then hits him again in the shoulder. "You're an ass!" He smirks in response. "Careful, there are children present." They both laugh. Children. The idea of kids terrifies and excites him. They've always danced around the subject. She's the one who is hesitant._

_"We could do it you know." He whispers quietly so that she can only hear him. Eponine walks around the park, snapping random pictures. "You could do it, not me."_

_"You'd be a wonderful mother," he says after catching up to her. They are far away from the others._

_"No I wouldn't. What if I drop it? Or forget to feed it? There are so many mistakes I could make along the way." He turns her around so she can see just how important she is to him. "You raised Gavroche and he turned out fine."_

_"He's in foster care," Eponine reminds him. He shrugs. "That's because of your parents, not you."_

_Eponine dances out from his grip and takes his picture. "Why are we even discussing this? We aren't even married."_

_And when she says this, he can't help but smile. "Yet."_

_"Yet?"_

_"That is if you accept my proposal," he says and Eponine is just about to remind him that he hasn't even proposed but is stopped when he gets down on one knee. Slipping the box that holds the ring out of his back pocket, Enjolras opens it. He can't help but grin as her eyes look like they are about to burst out of their sockets and she has one hand covering her mouth, the camera hanging limply in the other. His mouth is dry and he is sweating. He had practiced the proposal speech about seven times with Musichetta but now he forgets the words. _

_"I-i-I hope you don't mind spending the rest of your life with me b-because I want to spend the rest of mine with you. Eponine, will you marry me?" Even before he finishes the sentence she shouts yes, and they kiss so hard he sees stars. Not the bad ones, these are the ones that are full of such energy and life that you can't help but stare n wonder at them. _

_They lay on the grass and Eponine takes a picture of them covered in green grass and red leaves, with their hair messed up and going in all directions. They look at each other with smiles that outshine the sun._

Enjolras grabs onto the memory with all his strength. It's only one small memory but it's the most important one he's had and he's not going to let it go. It's the first one he as of them as a couple. The other pictures he has seen in the albums and on the computer, but this one blurry picture brought it back to him. And now a few, smaller memories seep in slowly, and he snatches them up with greed.

One where he and Eponine were fighting over which ice cream to buy, another where they had just made love and wordlessly held each other until they fell asleep. Two more memories and then three. Each one reminding him his love for her. They are better than the pictures, the videos, and the accounts from his friends because they are _his_ own. Now he remembers why he loves her and why she loves him.

Grabbing the other phone that is in the house, he quickly punches in the numbers.

He calls Combeferre and then the rest of his friends in excitement. The words spill out of his mouth like a dam breaking and he doesn't wait to ask if they understand him because he is already dialing the next number. After the last person that he can think of to call has heard his news, he is exhausted. He promises to himself before drifting off, that he will go to tell Eponine first thing in the morning.

* * *

When he gets there the next morning at the hospital, Enjolras had been told she was in surgery again. He nodded his understanding and waited in one of the plastic chairs for family and friends waiting for their loved ones to be done with surgery. He had been imagining the look of happiness that would appear on Eponine's face when he told her everything when he spotted Dr. Simplice. "Dr. Simplice, I remember her! Not everything of course but enough that I know I love Eponine and that everything will end up fine!"At first she was take aback by his new found optimism but got over the shock and congratulated him then went off to work with her new patients, leaving the anxious and excited Enjolras waiting in a plastic chair.

About an hour later he spots the doctor who had been working on Eponine. "How is she? Can I go see her? Please!" Enjolras was bouncing up and down on his heels. The doctor sighed then told him to sit down. "So I can't see Eponine?" Enjolras asks.

The doctor sighs again. "I'm sorry Enjolras, but there were some complications while in surgery and Eponine did not make it. She died less than twenty minutes ago. I'm sorry."

Enjolras reels back as if he had been struck. For the second time that week he thinks his friends are pulling some cruel joke on him. but nobody pops out of their hiding place with a camera and a 'gotch ya!'.

The doctor repeats again that he is sorry for his loss but Enjolras is done with sorries and apologies. Instead he calmly gets up and asks for a phone so that he can tell his friends, because he needs to take some action or the news was going to sink him down into oblivion.

* * *

Not even the sun can lift the somber mood. The thirty or so mourners all pay their respect. One man who no one recognizes, hangs back. His name is Gillenormand. He's young and one of his arms is in a sling. When asked how he broke it he simply says he was in a car crash. With his friend, family, or strangers that aren't the ones attending the funeral, they would respond by saying he was lucky he only got a broken wrist. But here the people cast a wary eye at him, looks of disdain washing over their faces.

He needs to get out of there but he has to apologize. When he spots the blonde man with the scar above his right eyebrow, he rushes forward to talk to him but two men block his path. A tall man with large muscles and a smaller, skinnier one who has red and black flowers embedding in his long blonde hair. "Please, I need to talk to him!"

"Well he doesn't want to talk to you," pipes up the smaller one. "Better go or we'll get security."

Gillenormand can tell they aren't joking and asks if he can at least pay his respect to the dead. The two men nod and he hears the bigger one say, "I thought I was security."

"No worries Bahorel, we would't call actual security. You're much more frightening than they are."

Gillenormand looks down at the headstone and mutters a quick apology for ruining her life, and leaves. The crowd makes a pathway for him to exit. They make sure not to touch him as if he has the bubonic plague. After all who would want to touch a killer?

* * *

Everyone is giving him pats on he back and telling him how sorry for his loss they were. The relatives are the second to leave behind the the young man who nobody knew the name to but everyone knew who he was. After that the doctor that worked on her and Dr. Simplice left. Soon his friends also leave. Maris and Cosette are the last to leave, pulling along their younger daughter whose eyes are wide in fright and amazement. "Why did Uncle Enj put Aunt Eppy in a hole?" he hears her ask and grimaces. Cosette apologizes while Marius and her older sister scold the child, then they too leave.

He gets a text from Courfeyrac saying he was sorry, but couldn't let Gavroche see his older sister in that state.

He's done with all the sorries that he has been getting in the past nine days. Sick of all of this shit that's been thrown on him.

He wants her to know that he loves her. Loathes thinking that she died thinking she was still a strange to him. And now he's the one with the memories he can't share. And it hurts just as much when he didn't have them. No he was alone, totally and completely.

He wanted to see Gillenormand's face but knew that if he did, he would lose it completely. He heard that the young man had gotten away with just a broken arm and hears the people cursing the man.

He wonders what would've happened if they had not gone to for dinner. Would they be preparing for a little girl named Patria and putting more pictures in the album? He hopes so.

And then he wonders what would've happened if he had told Eponine that night when the memories came back. If he had told her he remembered her, remembered them. Would she be alive? Did she just give up on life while on the surgery table? He hopes she didn't.

Enjolras tries to imagine an alive and happy Eponine, but can't because he isn't happy right then. All he can see of her is a young woman who had just lost her child and husband due to some drunk.

The clouds roll in though it doesn't rain. The sun doesn't cast any shadows for the rest of the day.

* * *

**A/N: I have had to rewrite this about three or four times because of a power outage, and then my computer didn't even work so I had to use my friend's laptop to write this all down again! Long story short this was a lot better before. ****I rarely write in present time for stories (is, says, etc) so there are a few grammar mistakes in here.**

**I was really torn if Enjolras should remember or not.  
**

**And the flashback memory is a very hidden reference to Edges (a musical), and the song Along The Way which Aaron Tveit performs (you can find it on youtube).**

**And yes, the proposal is very cheesy.**

**In case you got confused, Enjolras does remember Eponine, just not when they were friendly friends or a couple because they started doing all that after 2009.**


End file.
